Frederick Charles Hopkins was an

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and

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bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

in British Honduras,

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, at the turn of the 20th century.

Missionary bishop

Frederick C. Hopkins was born 12 December 1844 in

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. He entered the

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in September 1868 and was ordained a priest on 23 September 1877. He arrived on the British Honduras mission in January 1888. He became Superior of the mission in 1892 and

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in 1893. On the demise of Bishop

Salvatore di Pietro Salvatore di Pietro, (15 June 1830 – 23 August 1898) was an Italian Bishop in the Catholic Church. He served as the first Vicar Apostolic of Belize from 1893-1898. He is widely regarded as the most important figure in consolidating the Catholic ...

, Hopkins was made

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of British Honduras on 17 August 1899. He was consecrated bishop in

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in St. Louis on 5 November 1899. His

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parish was Holy Redeemer in Belize City. In 1910, when the Mercy motherhouse in

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was no longer able to send sisters to Belize, Hopkins obtained permission from

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and they opened an independent motherhouse in Belize. Then in 1913 Hopkins welcomed the Sisters of the Catholic Apostolate ( Pallottines) to Belize, to labor first in Corozal Town and

Benque Viejo Benque Viejo del Carmen ("Benque") is the westernmost town in Belize, by road west and south of Belize City, at the Guatemalan border. San Ignacio lies 13 km to the east and Melchor de Mencos just across the border. The Mopan River runs alo ...

.Woods, Charles M. Sr., et al. ''Years of Grace: The History of Roman Catholic Evangelization in Belize: 1524-2014''. (Belize: Roman Catholic Diocese of Belize City-Belmopan, 2015), pp. 197, 163, 174.

Writer

Before becoming bishop, Hopkins was editor of ''The Angelus'', the

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newspaper for British Honduras (later "

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"), and chronicled the early history of the mission. Much of what he wrote was from his own experience, as of the need to "get out of the pitpan and pull it up the raging waters." While bishop he wrote ''The Catholic Church in British Honduras (1851-1918)''. On 9 April 1923, Hopkins died when a coastal boat that he was travelling in sank, taking his life and that of two sisters headed with him to the Corozal mission. “Episode of the North: The E.M.L. sinks” (April 1984). ''The Christian Herald'', p. 8.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hopkins, Frederick C. 1844 births 1923 deaths Clergy from Birmingham, West Midlands 19th-century English Jesuits 20th-century English Jesuits Jesuit bishops English Roman Catholic missionaries Roman Catholic missionaries in Belize 20th-century Roman Catholic bishops in Belize Belizean Jesuits Jesuit missionaries Roman Catholic writers British expatriate bishops Roman Catholic bishops of Belize City–Belmopan